Pharmaceutical Compounds in Estuarine and Coastal Waters

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are a group of emerging contaminants of environmental concern that have remained largely unrecognized as such until recent advances in trace-level analytical measurements (Cha et al., 2006; Erickson, 2002; Gros et al., 2006; Lindsey et al., 2001). There is growing concern over the occurrence and fate of PPCPs in the environment, with evidence of adverse effects in terrestrial and aquatic organisms, and also the potential of some antibiotics to induce resistance in naturally occurring bacterial strains (Hirsch et al., 1998).